Accepting Infamy with a Smile

However, the tragic scene that everyone had anticipated did not occur. After the falling rocks disappeared, Hongdou appeared unharmed in the same spot, seemingly without even being touched, and continued to leap and climb.

After smashing the mountain wall to block the way, Zhou Qian did not stop to check the results of his battle, but instead seized the time to climb upwards. However, the rapidly approaching presence below told him that his interception operation had undoubtedly failed, and he had wasted time in the process.

He immediately recalled the scene of his all-out attack on the girl, which all missed. He figured that she must have avoided the falling rocks in the same way. He couldn't figure out the principle behind it, so he couldn't think of a way to break it. He didn't dare to waste time on a third attempt, so he turned his attention back to climbing the mountain and sped up as much as possible.

Twenty meters passed in a flash. Just as the protruding rock was about to be within reach, Zhou Qian suddenly heard the sound of wind from the side. He turned his head and found that Hongdou had climbed up to his level at some point and was leaping over to touch the rock.

"Don't even think about it!"

Zhou Qian thrust his staff forward with lightning speed; though it was just a wooden stick, he made it sound like a steel spear piercing the air.

This time he was on guard, no longer using that dense and chaotic offensive, but a straight line, a single-point breakthrough, ready to adjust the direction of his thrusts at any time to deal with those protective Secret Method that inexplicably caused his attacks to miss.

However, this time Hongdou had already thought of a way to deal with it. Instead of sitting idly waiting for the attack to come, she decisively activated "Boundary Wall Isolation" and reached out to meet the opponent's wooden stick.

"Hmph, don't think you can't kill someone just because you don't have a gun barrel!"

Zhou Qian was extremely confident in his staff thrust, even if his opponent had practiced Iron Sand Palm, he was certain he could pierce through him with a single blow.

However, the isolated space repelled outsiders, as if it were a forbidden zone forbidden entry by Principle, blocking the wooden stick and making it difficult to advance even half an inch, without making a sound.

Hongdou blocked the opponent's attack with a palm strike, then transformed her palm into a claw, grabbed the wooden stick, and then unleashed all her power, blasting it along the stick.

Lacking experience in combat, she would inevitably be at a disadvantage in a formal fight, so she simply avoided the contest of techniques and decided to decide the outcome directly with her Internal Cultivation!

Zhou Qian, with his extensive experience in the martial world, immediately realized what the other party was doing. But what could he do even if he guessed it? If he didn't want to compete with the other party in Internal Cultivation, he could only let go of the wooden stick. But without a weapon, how could he fight the other party in this special terrain? He was afraid he wouldn't even be able to touch the hem of the clothes.

"I don't believe it. At your age, how deep can your Internal Cultivation be? I've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice. Even if you started practicing from the womb, it wouldn't be as good as my forty years of hard work." Zhou Qian gritted his teeth and mustered all his strength to resist.

Then, he was swallowed up by the surging Torrent of True Qi.

With a "pfft," Zhou Qian spat out a mouthful of blood. His internal organs were injured, and he was thrown back, barely managing to grab onto a rock to avoid falling.

Hongdou seized the opportunity, leaped up, slapped the strange rock, leaving a clear palm print on it, and then used the momentum to leap to the top of the cliff in a double jump.

"Haha, I won! Now I can help Xiao Ming too."

Hongdou clenched her fist, her face full of joyful smiles. She even jumped up and down happily a few times before remembering that there was someone she had injured below.

She patted her head, walked to the edge of the cliff, squatted down, and stretched out the wooden stick, saying, "Uncle, grab this stick, I'll pull you up."

Having achieved victory, her previous anger had long since dissipated and been forgotten by Hongdou, especially since she wasn't one to hold grudges.

"Sigh, what a disgrace! Not only did I lose to a junior, but I was also dragged down by him. I've completely lost face. From now on, my 'Ape King Staff' can only be called the 'Monkey Playing Staff'."

Zhou Qian sighed and shook his head helplessly, but he did not refuse Hongdou's kindness and reached out to grab the wooden stick.

Just as he was about to use the momentum to climb up, his eyes suddenly widened, his eyeballs bulging outwards as if they were about to be squeezed out of their sockets, and then two streams of black blood flowed from his nostrils.

"You actually... No! Not you, it's them! Why...?"

Soon, black blood flowed from Zhou Qian's eyes, nose, and mouth. His heart contracted violently, as if it were about to be crushed. He turned his head with difficulty and looked down at the earth below, finding the Zhou Clan family patriarch among the crowd at the foot of the mountain.

Hundreds of meters apart, their eyes met, but without exchanging a word, Zhou Qian understood the other's meaning and gave a bitter smile, "So that's how it is. No wonder they didn't send a Chen Family, but made me appear instead. Ha, hahaha, this is Aristocratic Clan is like..."

Zhou Qian was completely exhausted, and his consciousness began to blur. He didn't know when he let go of the hand, and his body fell downwards. He heard the girl's scream, which was then drowned out by the howling wind.

In his field of vision, the scenery was rising rapidly. Turning his perspective to look directly down, he saw a chaotic crowd, seemingly shouting something, but he couldn't hear anything. Even the sound of the wind disappeared from his hearing. He could only watch helplessly as the earth drew closer and closer, taking up more and more space in his field of vision, until finally his consciousness ended and everything returned to nothingness.

"What exactly happened? How could someone suddenly fall and be killed?"

Si Shuiyun looked at the mass of mangled flesh, barely recognizable as human, at the foot of the mountain not far away, and at the crowd surging toward that place, her face full of questions.

Looking at the final scene alone, the most reasonable conclusion is that Hongdou pretended to pull the person up the cliff, but took the opportunity to injure the person, causing them to fall to their death.

This reasoning is completely unreasonable. Not to mention that Hongdou had already won the game and had no need to do this, even if she had lost in the end, given her personality, she wouldn't seek revenge against her opponent. Rather, given her personality and naivety, it's more likely that she was tricked by someone else.

Furthermore, Zhou Qian's final reaction was also strange. With his cultivation level, even if he didn't use his lightness skill to shift his weight and stick to the mountain wall again, he should have at least struggled to slow down his fall. But he did nothing at all. Could he have been killed by Hongdou's Internal Cultivation?

"Haha, brilliant! I never expected this to happen. It's both logical and unexpected!"

After his initial surprise, Si Ming couldn't help but applaud.

Si Shuiyun said with dissatisfaction, "The Aristocratic Clan will be sending people to question us soon, and you're still in the mood to applaud?"

"They put on such a wonderful show for us, of course we should applaud to show our respect," Si Ming said solemnly. "They're risking their lives to act; the actor... no, I should say the director, is truly a great director who pursues realism."

Chapter 358 Accepting Infamy

Just as Si Ming finished speaking, he noticed that Master Wuguo had opened his eyes, and the energy within his body had calmed down and was no longer fluctuating violently. He then said, "Master, you just missed a good show. You could stop me from killing them, but you couldn't stop them from killing themselves."

Master Wuguo glanced at the members of the Aristocratic Clan, his gaze calm, devoid of pity or anger. His eyes were like a bright lake, reflecting the rights and wrongs of people's hearts, yet leaving no trace after the reflection.

Clearly, after being nearly Qi Deviation by Si Ming's words, his State of Mind improved; it was a blessing in disguise, a transformation from destruction to creation.

"Forgive me, forgive me," Master Wuguo shook his head, then turned to Si Ming and said with a double meaning, "Alliance Leader Sima, you have lost this round."

Upon hearing this, Si Ming paused for a moment, then realized what he meant and laughed loudly, "You're right, I lost this round. Opportunity always favors the prepared."

The Aristocratic Clan's move was quite obvious: poisoning their own people and then framing the Heavenly Martial Alliance would allow them to win without a fight. That's why they showed a regretful expression when they saw Hongdou use what appeared to be a "Levitation Technique" to stop her fall.

In other matches, they might have questioned the Heavenly Martial Alliance about Hongdou's foul, but in a martial arts fight, "suspected foul" is obviously insignificant compared to "poisoning the opponent."

Moreover, this poison must have been prepared in advance. Wuguo Aristocratic Clan would not poison someone on the spot, as that would be easy to be discovered. The reason this method was not used in the previous three martial arts battles was that before the battles began, Master Wuguo would first investigate the physical condition of both sides to confirm whether there were any abnormalities, such as temporarily taking some forbidden drugs to enhance their Cultivation Body.

In this one match, Master Wuguo went "Qi Deviation" due to Si Ming's words, failing to examine either side's bodies. The Aristocratic Clan seized the opportunity to send the already poisoned Zhou Qian to frame them—they couldn't have foreseen such an unexpected event before the competition, yet they still poisoned their own people. That's why Si Ming praised them, saying, "Opportunity always favors the prepared."